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Friday, April 11, 2014

Easy S'mores Popcorn

I love opportunities to bake something for others. I get to enjoy the creative process, but I don't have to stress about the calories or who I am going to give it to. It's already decided. For me, it's a win-win situation. This week I got to have some fun and make my own popcorn creation/recipe for a church function. I was excited and being the full on procrastinator, last minute thinker, thrive under pressure person I am I didn't start making it or even decide what I was going to make until dinner time. Those of you with kids know that dinner time is not a peaceful time. However, I thrive under pressure so it all worked out perfectly and this Easy S'mores Popcorn was created. This popcorn is easy. This popcorn is kind of addicting (I sampled far too much, but I had to be sure of its quality). This popcorn can be adapted to your preference. If you love s'more b/c of the marshmallows add a little more. If you prefer to go light on the chocolate (not me, but my husband) add less. I give you all the hints and measurements below in the recipe. However, if you love s'mores and want to enjoy s'mores even with young kids then whip some of this popcorn up. You can have s'mores while enjoying a movie. You can have s'mores without having to worry about your son jumping in the fire (or would that just be my son?). Basically, you can enjoy s'mores anytime and anyplace with this popcorn.Oh, and let me not forget you do not need a fancy popper or other fancy appliances with this recipe, and you are using plain old kernels. Now, if you are down right impressive you could do this with just your microwave. Pretty darn sweet, right?

In a medium-large glass bowl pour 1/4 cup of the popcorn kernels. Cover it with a large plate (not plastic) and microwave it for 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Pour your popped popcorn into a large bowl, and microwave the other 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels the same way. If you have a large enough glass bowl, and you want to risk it you could try the entire 1/2 cup at once. I am limited with my glass bowl size. I do want to say that if you have an air popper, you can obviously use it for this first step.

With all of your popcorn popped and now in a large bowl you can melt your chocolate chips. If you like chocolate do the entire cup, but if you don't like it as much only do the 1/2 cup to lightly coat the popcorn. I have a sweet chocolate chip melt setting on my microwave that I can push, but if you don't just microwave it for 30 second intervals stirring in between each interval until the chocolate is smooth.

Pour your melted chocolate over your popcorn and using a spatula of some kind spend at least 3 minutes stirring your popcorn to evenly coat and distribute the chocolate. I found I really had to stir much longer than I would've liked, but it is totally worth it for all popcorn kernels to feel equally loved. :)

Add your graham cracker crumbs to the chocolate popcorn and stir again for a few minutes to equally distribute. I used a food processor to make my crumbs, and I purposely left some a little bigger. I LOVED the large graham cracker crumb bites, so throw some in with some big chunks if you have it.

In a small pan over low heat melt the butter and the marshmallows. I thought 3/4 cup of the mini marshmallows was plenty. It gave the taste of marshmallows w/o it completely taking over the popcorn. However, if you love marshmallows and want more throw up to 1 1/2 cups in. If you add the full 1 1/2 cups of marshmallows I would increase your butter to 1 tablespoon while melting.

Stir your marshmallows in a pan and stir it constantly until melted. I know some fancy microwaves have a "Marshmallow Melt" button, and if yours has that and you trust it by all means go ahead and use it.

Pour your melted marshmallows over the popcorn mixture and again stir for several minutes to evenly distribute the marshmallow goodness.

If you added only 3/4 cup of marshmallow go ahead and enjoy your s'mores popcorn straight out of the bowl. If you added the full marshmallow amount you will need to pour out your popcorn onto some wax paper to break up the marshmallow popcorn clumps to the sizes you prefer. This step will help you avoid one large marshmallow popcorn ball. Let the popcorn sit on the wax paper to cool a bit and set, but you can feel free to snack from the wax paper for quality control purposes of course.